We've all played Wind Waker. We've all heard about Valley Of The Deluge. But let's think about it; could they, and should they, create a game about the Flood?
Wind Waker establishes that apparently no hero came to defeat Ganondorf. For one reason or another, Ganondorf went "undefeated", and there was no Link. That in itself causes an enormous problem, doesn't it? Okay, Valley Of The Deluge worked around that by making the hero "not really Link", but that's a massive cop-out, isn't it? Of course, they could always make it so that a hero did appear (and sealed Ganondorf under the flood waters, saved civilians, etc.) but simply went unacknowledged (much like most Link's -
OOT Link is possibly the only one recognised for his deeds) and so was eventually lost in the hundreds of retellings of the Flood story.
But what of story and gameplay? As a person who admires new ideas, you might feel that making a game about the flood is simply shameless and unneccessary fanservice instead of innovation. But is there any room for a flood game? Surely it could present some interesting ideas?
I personally would not mind a game about the flood (although I'd much prefer that they came up with new ideas), so long as it does it right and doesn't contradict what Wind Waker says about the flood. Plus, it would be a good way to bring back the whole "impending doom" feeling of Majora's Mask, although it could potentially end up seeming like a MM copycat.
Imagine it - a game in the adult timeline, with a Hyrule only a few hundred years ahead of
OOT. The graphics could be realistic, and the water would be phenomenal, if they incorporated the water graphics of
TP/SMG and the wave physics of Wave Race 64.
They could draw some comparisons to the Noah's Ark story too, if they wanted to get really deep. Imagine a system with 40 days on a timer, each being some 10-30 minutes long, and the water would rise in real-time. The game could involve building a big boat and evacuating the races to it, only it would come with the bitter realisation that you can only save so many of the races and wildlife in Hyrule. This could offer a more "objective" based gameplay style, on capturing Hyrule wildlife and convincing tribes to come with you to the boat, rather than shallow dungeon-running. Of course, there would be a certain amount of neccessary dungeons to go through, for items such as the Master Sword, but by and large it would be an almost side-quest based game. At the end of a day, you can choose to redo the day if you feel you have done it wrong, and you must redo a day (without choice) if you do not fulfill a certain amount of objectives in one day.
So what do you think? Could they pull off a flood-based game? Should they bother?
02-06-2009, 10:11 AM
